Our purpose is to conduct a series of controlled experimental and clinical studies designed to generate information which can help answer the question of whether acupuncture is efficacious as an analgesic, and, if so, under what circumstances, with what kinds of pain, and in what kinds of test subjects. Specific aspects of that broad and complex question will be studied initially under controlled laboratory conditions using pain-induction procedures for which we have a rich accumulation of baseline data. Pain will be induced experimentally by the Submaximum Effort Tourniquet Technique and by electric shock and radiant heat procedures. Those experimental studies will be followed by studies of the efficacy of acupuncture for control of dental pain associated with procedures varying in pain intensity from the mild or moderate pain of deep scaling, tooth preparation, and periodontal procedures, to the severe pain produced by oral surgical procedures. We will study specific features of acupuncture technique, characteristics of test subjects, characteristics of acumpuncturists, and other variables which might account for effects observed after application of acupuncture. While studying the substantive issues cited above, special effort will be directed toward development of methods and elaboration of concepts that will promote understanding of pain, pain reduction, and the psychology of pain. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Smith, G.M., Chiang, H.T., Kitz, R.J., and Antoon, A. Acupuncture and Experimentally Induced Pain. In: Advances in Neurology, John J. Bonica (Ed.), Raven Press, Vol. 4, 1974, 827-832. Smith, G.M., Yoon, N., Chan, W.B., Regina, E.G., and Hsu, T. Search for relevant procedural variables in study of acupuncture analgesia. (Abstract) The Pharmacologist 17, 207, 1975.